Are there enough hyphens in that post title?

So, as promised, I wanted to post up a pictorial step-by-step to... well, to the way I tie my scarves. After this post (where the last pic shows me wearing one of my three jersey scarves from American Apparel), I got a few comments and a bunch of emails asking exactly how I make it look like that... the funniest thing is that I actually get asked about it in person, too and I've taught a few women in my building how to tie their scarves. I'm think I'm both flattered and a little weirded out by it all...

Anyhow, let's get to it! Despite the (9) steps shown here, it really is a pretty straightforward process. Also, please realize that the outcome is going to depend a lot on how thick and how long your scarf is, but I'll give you a tip at the end on how to deal with those differences ::

1) hang your scarf around your neck, making one end hit near your waist and the other hang long - probably down to your knee... this longer end is the one you'll be wrapping around.

2) loop the longer end around your neck once, making sure that the loop goes over the scarf already on your shoulder/neck...

3) continue around your neck a 2nd time with the same longer end, but this time go under the other end. This is going to create a little loop that you'll need later ;)

4) this image shows how your scarf ends should look when that longer end is looping underneath...

5) your scarf will now be looped around your neck twice and you'll have ends (roughly of equal lengths) on both right and left -

6) now find the loop you created, it'll be up near your neck... and take hold of the end that you've been looping,

7) put the end through that loop - this is basically locking your scarf in place and creating a really nice "braided" look around your neck.

8) I usually fluff up the scarf a little at this point, and then

9) even out the ends by rotating the scarf around your neck until the ends meet (or until the ends fall where you want them... maybe unevenly instead!) -

*if your scarf is shorter or thicker/chunkier, take out the first loop around the neck (steps 2&3) and go immediately to the 'looping underneath' step (4). Basically, you just take out one of the revolutions around your neck, but are still creating the "hole" for your scarf end to pass through. This is how I tie my heavier, wool smARTWORKS scarf!

Okay, go get a scarf and try it out!

If you need a larger step-by-step image to look at while you try it out, just click on this link!